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theodp writes "It took nearly a decade, but Google has done a turnabout and is honoring Veterans Day with a special holiday design for its famous logo. Users who log onto Google's home page are greeted with three World War I-era helmets capping the letters 'o' and 'e' in Google's name. The decoration is a marked departure for the company, which has come under fire from veterans' groups for ignoring American holidays such as Veterans Day and Memorial Day since Google's inception in 1999."

Google's commemoration of Veterans Day 2007, the first time it has honored the U.S. holidayIt took nearly a decade, but Internet giant Google is finally honoring Veterans Day with a special holiday design for its famous logo.Users who log onto Google's home page today will see three World War I-era helmets capping the letters "o" and "e" in Google's name.The decoration is a marked departure for the company, which has come under fire from veterans' groups for ignoring American holidays such as Veterans Day and Memorial Day since Google's inception in 1999.

The firm, known for its widely used search engine, regularly modifies its logo to commemorate holidays, historical events and figures.

"Maybe all the pressure is paying off," said WND reader Donna Hunter of Philadelphia. "God bless all our soldiers!"When the Los Angeles Times asked the California-based firm about the issue earlier this year, spokeswoman Sunny Gettinger responded, "Google's special logos tend to be lighthearted and often scientific in nature. We do not believe we can convey the appropriate somber tone through this medium to mark holidays like Memorial Day."The Ledger newspaper of Lakeland, Fla., called that excuse "laughable."

Just last month Google acknowledged an accomplishment of the communist Soviet Union, which launched the Sputnik space satellite 50 years ago.With the surprise launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, the Soviet Union leaped ahead in the race for space between the U.S. and the communist empire. Sputnik's success followed the failure of the first two Project Vanguard launch attempts by the U.S. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57982 [worldnetdaily.com]

Google also has given special honors for astronomer Percival Lowell, artist Edvard Munch and Louis Braille, inventor of the writing system for the blind.

Other days commemorated included National Teachers Day, Women's Day, Ray Charles' birthday, World Water Day and St. George's Day.

Besides overlooking Memorial Day and Veterans Day until today, it also has ignored Christmas.

Google has been criticized for its one-sided political contributions and content policies:

Rejecting an ad for a book critical of Bill and Hillary Clinton while continuing to accept anti-Bush themesRejecting ads critical of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., while continuing to run attack ads against former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.Allowing the communist Chinese government to have the search engine block "objectionable" search terms such as "democracy."In addition, the company came under fire for an editorial decision giving preferential placement to large, elite media outlets such as CNN and the BBC over independent news sources, such as WND, even if they are more recent, pertinent and exhaustive in their coverage.

As WND reported, 98 percent of all political donations by Google employees went to support Democrats, and as a matter of fact, Al Gore is now a senior adviser to Google.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave the maximum legal limit of donations to Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry and to primary candidate Howard Dean.Schmidt also contributed the maximum amount to Sen. Clinton.

It was down the whole time I searched for, copied and edited in the links, for the article. Gave a timeout probably 4-5 times while I was searching for the article and again before I hit sumbit. Checking now, it comes up immediatly.

1) Debate the message, not the messenger.2) Someone who advocates raping and murdering others because they don't like their pollitical opinions has no business calling someone else "insane" or "fascist". Hint: that would be you, Chuckles.

+1
Too many people have picked their sides in this growing civil war and could care less about the truth because it might be reported on a conservative or liberal source. What's laughable is many then claim to be "moderate." "Oh I'm not a Democrat or Republican. I just want the truth!" Yeah right. This is getting out of hand. If I'm for lower taxes I have to choose Republican. If I'm for gay rights I have to be Democrat. Oh and if I'm gay and a Republican I risk being outed by gay Democrats. What is it that we want? Split the country? Looks like we could be headed that way.

I'm sorry... was it Lincoln who fired on Fort Sumter, or rebel troops? Lincoln wasn't even in office yet, and the rebels were attacking Federal installations without even knowing or understanding what Lincoln's administration was going to do when it took office.

"
It did piss a lot of people off, and yes, we are all suffering the consequences of his actions.

And a hell of a lot more people are NOT suffering because of the consequence."

I was alluding more to the loss of states rights to the greater Federal govt. powers....

I'm guessing you're alluding to slavery, which while I'm grateful is overwith....that is not what Lincoln was out to reverse. If he could have kept the Union with slavery, he'd likely have done that. Slavery was horrible, but, don't kid yoursel

First, I'm not slamming him for being associated with "progressives". I'm saying that "progressivism" itself is evil.

Second, you mis-used the world "condone". It means "to overlook". And I am certainly NOT doing that.

honestly, you're just as bad as that which you purport to 'cast out'.

First, I notice that you are castigating me for criticizing the "progressive" instead of objecting to what the parent wrote. Shall I assume that you approve of all of the "progressive" things which were written?

Second, how do you judge me "just as bad" as that which I cast out? Namely, where did I espouse the things for which I judged him evil?

if lumping everyone you disagree with under some stupid insulting banner is bad in the parent post, it's just as bad when you do it too.

I am not "lumping everyone I disagree with" under a stupid insulting banner. I am objecting to:

1. The overuse of profanity2. The abuse of the word "fascist"3. Expressing violence and wishing for murder4. Excessive guilt-by-associating5. Condoning of rape -- I take it back. He wasn't merely "condoning". He was actively wishing that someone be violently raped.

All of those were expressed in the parent post, and I see all of those and much more in most "progressive" writing today. I think that "progressivism" stands for all five of those things, and thus "progressivism" is evil. If you disagree, then please explain where I've gone wrong, you who saw no reason to object to what the parent poster wrote.

First, I'm not slamming him for being associated with "progressives". I'm saying that "progressivism" itself is evil.

Well by that token Fred Phelps and his "God Hates Fags" protesters are the face of the conservative movement. Casting the most radical of any faction as the norm is an easy way to dismiss any political movement.

Well by that token Fred Phelps and his "God Hates Fags" protesters are the face of the conservative movement. Casting the most radical of any faction as the norm is an easy way to dismiss any political movement.

Actually, Fred Phelps is a Democrat. Just as the Log Cabin Republicans. [lcrga.com] (actually, there are many others I could have chosen, but I thought the LCR would be most fitting)

Here, I'll even correct your first sentence for you:

Well by that token Fred Phelps and his "God Hates Fags" protesters are the face of the Democrat movement.

I guess my only point here is to point out that conservatives, Christians, a

Here's another option for you:I ignore assholes on the Internet. Someone goes off about rape and razor wire and such? They go onto my mental blacklist. To condemn them would be to acknowledge them -- and that's more than they're worth. Social ostracism works better than open condemnation sometimes, because the latter allows those who flaunt social conditioning to decide the topic of discussion; further, this policy means that these most offensive of trolls are denied the response they crave.

Socialism and National Socialism are completely opposite ideologies. Calling yourself a "socialist" in Hitler's Germany got you a one way ticket to prison - if you were lucky. National Socialism is an ideology based upon racial superiority. Socialism is an ideology based upon working cooperatively rather than in competition.

Here are some other helpful things to know:

Christian Scientists are not scientists

Neo-liberals are not liberals

Parapsychologists are not psychologists

Shampoo is not poo

The last of these is particularly important, especially if you're the kind of person who believes that socialism and national socialism resemble one another in some way. You will not "save money" by using your own poo to wash your hair.

As far as I can tell, the one difference between Nazi's and Communists were their stances on private property - Nazi's believed in Private Property insofar as it did what the state directed it to do. VW didn't come up with the Volkswagon themselves.'Racial Superiority' was part of the Nazi's idealogical arsenal, however it was not and is not the chief defining characteristic any more than anti-Zionism is Communism's.

And Socialism has precious little to do with 'working cooperatively' and everything to do with wealth redistribution. I guess it depends on which side of the equation you're on, eh?

That is entirely black-and-white thinking to say that socialism and the Nazi idology are "completely opposite" ideologies. Only a Nazi or a Communist would say such a thing, since both of then were fighting each other for who would be the totalitarian slave-lord of Europe. Do you think "slavery" is too harsh a term to describe the Communists? Read the Gulag Archipeligo and get informed as to who performed the work in the GULAG (what was a "zek"?) and how they were... ahem... acquired.

In truth, both the Nazi ideology and the Communist ideology are anti-individual and thus evil ideologies which deserve to be utterly destroyed. I demand nothing less than complete and unconditional surrender from both of them.

If you hate individualism, then you'll probably see my last comment as somewhat extreme. In that case, you would be a prime candidate for Nazi/Communist proselytizing.

I'm pro individualism, but I also recognize that pure individualism doesn't work. It's all about finding the sweet spot between being and individual and being a member of a group -- because that is what each of us is. If you can't see that then you're victim to the same black-and-white thinking you are calling out.

In other words: show me a country with zero public services and I'll show you a place you don't want to live.

I agree. Also, I think it's downright idiodic that people are berating google over a stupid logo on veteran's day, but as we speak there are 1000's of veterans suffering from injuries due to iraq, and not being taken care of like they are supposed to. There are veterans that have been put on the street because they were forced to deal with the costs of their medical care that they can't afford. Yet these people actually care about a friggin' google logo.

which has come under fire from veterans' groups for ignoring American holidays such as Veterans Day and Memorial Day since Google's inception in 1999."

should read:

which has come under fire from nut-job websites for rightly dropping their nut-job non-news site from the news index"

World Nut Daily are a bunch of kooks, with a knife to grind. Getting listed in google news was a wet dream for them. Getting delisted ('cause they aint a news site), really pissed them off. They've had an anti-google axe to grind ever since.

Google employees donate roughly 93% Democratic. Google as a corporation donates roughly evenly. This is not at all surprising to anyone with a clue, given the business they are in and who their employees are.

What we have here is a pissing contest between people who are deeply impressed with how "smart" they are. Can you do math quickly? Probably. Do you have an extraordinary memory? Almost certainly. Are you great a puzzles? Indubitably.....

So, when these two geniuses disagree, the argument is "I'm pretty sure I'm much, MUCH smarter than you are", followed by "I'm pretty sure you're not".

That is pathetic.

That is also a great demonstration that someone who is extraordinarily "smart" isn't necessarily wise or admirable.

Everything the article says is true. Google not only doesn't post Christmas logos, they hate Christmas, and they will use their new cellphone based Google OS to send signals into the air to turn Santa Clause into a mindless, liberal zombie. He will give presents of thongs and condoms to children, along with bootlegged copies of Brokeback mountain. Google will use liberal attack ad propaganda to turn us all into communists.

Maybe you should read the "article" a little further. You'll find advertisements made with a nice big dose of crazy.

Uh, November the 11th sort of is an internationally observed day - in most parts of the world it's called Armistice day or Rememberance day, though. Much as I hate to break up the nationalism party, the end of World War I did sort of affect more than just Americans.

Looks to me like people are remembering the wrong thing. On November 11, one should commemorate fallen soldiers. But one should also remember the political and social issues that caused millions to die in WWI and WWII in the first place, the international cooperation it took to win in those conflicts, and the dangers of right wing populism, nationalism, and militarism.

It seems to me those lessons are getting lost, in particular among the right wing nuts that complain about Google not having a special logo for Veterans Day.

Make no mistake: if we are talking about the "Veterans Day" what is usually meant is the day in which Americans honor their veterans. Most other nations don't honor their veterans on this day (none that I know of) and sure as hell not nations such as Vietnam, Guatemala, Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Lebanon, El Salvador, Grenada, Bolivia, Iran, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq or any other country where troops were/are deployed to the dismay of the local population.

Thanks I was going to mention it was an International holiday. I am afraid that history education in most countries is pretty lacking. On the eleventh hour, eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 WWI ended. It was a bloody war that took millions of lives. I think it is a day well worth remembering.

Actually Armistice Day is the glorification of an end to a bit of needless destructive force being applied across most of Europe.

Sure, that's the way it's supposed to be. But look at today's politicians marking the occasion with somber speeches and how important it is to never forget those who have fallen and we must have peace amongst nations and blah, blah, blah. Then the very next day they're back to beating their war drums and sending more people off to die. It's bullshit hypocrisy.

And it has turned into a glorification of war. It's stopped being a day of mourning and warning and is now just a day of honoring the soldiers. "Look how brave they were, just like today's soldiers who are even now going off to become men and saving us from the evil forces across the sea."

One can wear a white poppy [wikipedia.org] to remember the dead without supporting any glorification of war, in particular, redemption, i.e., the stated belief of the British Legion that sending soldiers to fight is always good (regardless of the morality of the conflict) because those who die killing others go straight to (Christian) heaven. The white poppies were first made in 1933 by war widows (following attempts as early 1926 by them to get the British Legion to decouple remembrance from glorification and redemption)

Exactly. I know watching all those old soldiers march past the Cenotaph in London laying wreaths for their friends who didn't make it back really fires up my blood and makes me want to start another war.

Maybe the 11th of November 1918 is forgotten in Germany, as it was a huge defeat and the signal for the start of an incompetent democracy (Weimar) and the slow rise of the Nazi party.

However it is not forgotten in the UK, France or Australia. Not everybody who fought in that war is dead yet. The last remaining survivors are well over 100, but there are a few left, at least two in France.

November 11th is, in practice, a completely ignored day in Scandinavia and Germany.

Quite true. In Germany, at least in the more southern parts, November 11 is (and was as long as I can think back) more famous as the 'Karneval' (carnival) season starts at exactly 11:11 (a.m.). BTW, a google-logo in honour of this 'important' date would fit to the 'no evil' image much better.

It's a fairly big day in the UK. In New Zealand, it's still traditional to have a minute's silence at 11am, often done in schools. There are other days to remember, but this is a pretty big one. WWI, in some ways, was a bigger lesson for humanity than WWII. It showed us that with the technology we've developed, no one truly wins when two or more big powers square off against each other. Until then, declaring war against other large powers for no real other reason than to prove your own power was commonplace.

We learnt a lot more lessons from WWII (about what happens when a major power is backed into a corner), and from the Cold War (the fact that there was never a direct war between the two major powers involved shows we *are* learning, albeit slowly). Days like Nov 11th are there to help us remember these lessons, so we don't make the same mistake twice. In a lot of countries, these lessons are "rolled up" into one day, e.g in New Zealand, Anzac Day (25th April) is used to recognise all major wars NZ has been involved in, even though it was originally a WWI rememberance day.

The fact that it's almost 100 years ago since these lessons were first learnt is even *more* reason for us to try to work hard to remember them.

So five left? It happened 90 years ago. I wish people would just get on with their lives we got more problems today with other wars which are killing people but we never spend the time to think about them.

For example all those monks in Burma that died to peacefully protest their government. They'll never be remembered apart from their 15 minutes of fame on the news.

couldn't we have picked a better source for the info? Yes, Google acknowledges Remembrance Day in Canada (as pointed out in this blog/whatever), but that doesn't mean they have to acknowledge Veterans/Memorial Day. Am I glad they did it? Sure. Do I believe they have to? No. Does World Net Daily have to go off on how Google is supposedly left leaning? Umm...no. I got to this part, and threw up a little in my mouth and called it a day.
"In addition, the company came under fire for an editorial decision giving preferential placement to large, elite media outlets such as CNN and the BBC over independent news sources, such as WND, even if they are more recent, pertinent and exhaustive in their coverage."

Who bloody cares? And "elite" media outlets? WTF does that mean? Independent news sources? How is the BBC not an independent news source? And what does this have to do with acknowledging Veterans Day? I would have preferred they simply said "Those commie pinkos in Silicon Valley aren't red blooded Americans for supporting Veterans." What a bunch of crap.

I imagine it is similar to pagerank...CNN, BBC, etc do well in relevance algorithms because they're widely linked to. Thus, it is a conspiracy to oppress WND, right?? Honestly, some people have an oppression complex. WND's editorial quality is equivalent to your average blog, they get traffic and cross linking in a tier well below the likes of CNN, so they're treated as a boutique site in the news ranking algorithm. I can't imagine any algorithm that could manage to pick WND over other news sites base

While it's amazing that this story is newsworthy... it's worth taking a look at the bigger picture: people take notice at Google's logo changes because they've kept an uncluttered appearance. On most websites, you probably wouldn't even notice a small logo change!

In general, the so-called Web2.0 revolution has brought about much more single-purpose tools, compared to the multi-tools of the past. This leads to deeper functional design and performance, instead of deep integration (which is only slowly coming along thanks to mashup-enabling technologies).

The message is clear: web designers, get to the point! Don't distract your users. Make every word and every image count.

Do these same veterans groups attack Yahoo, MSN, and Altavista for not decorating their logos with militaria on Veteran's Day? This is a non-news post about a bunch of whiners if you ask me. Google's decoration can be purely voluntary and random for all I care.

Well... If Yahoo, MSN, and Altavista DID change their logos for New Years, Christmas (and Kwanza and Hannucka), Easter, Valentines Day, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, etc... and didnt change it for Veteran's day then yeah they probably would.

It's more about a bunch of minor holidays (I mean honestly who gives a fuck about valentine's day not like any slashdot reader has a girlfriend) not getting recognized and the day Veterans and the War dead are supposed to be honored not getting the respect it deserves.

Well, Remembrance Day (I'm assuming it's the same as Veterans' Day over your way) is supposed to celebrate the end of the war---the peace, not the fighting itself. Hence the whole eleventh minute/hour/day/month business.

Click on their poll link at the end of their article, and this is what passes off:

What are your thoughts on Google now that it designed a logo for veterans?

Fantastic! Google has had its head up its search engine for more than 7 years!

I'm glad to see the change of heart, and I'll use Google more often

I still have major gripes with Google, but at least this is a small step in the right direction

Looks like someone reminded people at Google they live in the U.S. and enjoy freedoms soldiers have shed blood fighting for

1 lonely logo for veterans since 1999? Whoopidy-freakin-doo!

Google's logos are irrelevant

Google only did it to get WND off its back

Must have been the new guy who did the design. He's not hip to the anti-American company rules yet

Google is still evil, and must be shunned at all costs

Other

And I RTFA'd too. No, these people don't have any sort of bias against the Googles. . . Put this WorldNetDaily.com on your list of propaganda websites that are too stupid to even try to appear objective.

Fantastic! Google has had its head up its search engine for more than 7 years!I'm glad to see the change of heart, and I'll use Google more oftenI still have major gripes with Google, but at least this is a small step in the right directionLooks like someone reminded people at Google they live in the U.S. and enjoy freedoms soldiers have shed blood fighting for1 lonely logo for veterans since 1999? Whoopidy-freakin-doo!Google's logos are irrelevantGoogle only did it to get WND off its backMust have been th

The "Google hates America!" claim was absurd as they have a special logo for Independence Day which is suitable flag themed. Some people just refuse to understand that the logo is changed only sometimes, and for a motley assortment of reason from serious (they have logos for memorial/veteran's day in Australia for example) to obscure (World Water Day). It isn't meant to recognize the top 20 most important events in history or something.

At any rate, I think it's safe to say that next year WND will be bitching about Memorial Day and Columbus Day. And if they got logos for those it would be Reagan's Birthday and the day they pardoned Oliver North. You can't win with these whiners. It's a freaking logo, this is the stupidest controversy in history.

I'm not going to defend Google from the position of a fan, but only to say how I would feel if I were in that same position.

If I had to design logos for my company based on holiday themes, what do you think I would do when I came across Veteran's Day? I can't think of any appropriate way to symbolize veterans without displaying something explicitly national or military. The holiday doesn't really have any symbols other than American flags and stuff, and that's not too great for public relations as I'm showcasing a particular country's role in a major war. War means killing people. Lots of people. Lots of people whose dead relatives and ancestors (on the other side of the conflict) are now customers of mine.

Personally, I'd want to sweep this one under the rug. Google couldn't do that because of all the bad press it was getting, so they finally drew some army helmets. Sure, it's military equipment, but at least helmets save lives and rarely (if ever) end them. Also, the green little helmet doesn't have to identify any single nation, even though it's an American holiday.

November 11 is hardly a holiday! In many parts of the english-speaking world and Europe, Remembrance Day is a solemn occasion where wreaths are laid at war memorials and a minutes silence is observed by many people at work and elsewhere at 1100 hours. I believe that it is also called Armistice Day in some parts of the world.

Well if you really want to nitpick, technically Veterans Day is solely an American holiday as other countries celebrate Rememberance Day (which I think is more appropriate but crazy thing is no one asked me).

The poppy isn't well known for Veterans Day in the US. In fact until I found it on wikipedia a few months ago, I had no idea that about the significance of the poppy and November 11. From Google's perspective it wouldn't make much sense to make a logo that would make no sense to one of their largest

Isn't the poppy pretty damn iconic as far as Rememberence Day is concerned?

As a Canadian, I'd say yes.

But here in the US, I have yet to see a poppy in anyone's lapel, and haven't met anyone familiar with the In Flanders Fields poem [wikipedia.org] or who otherwise knows much about Rememberance Day [wikipedia.org] in general. The differences, at least to me, are rather disappointing. When I was a kid, everyone in school and out wore their poppies proudly, and listened with reverence whenever and wherever the poem was recited.

Then, there's the issue of how other countries commemorate the events of either war. I highly doubt Russia (an ally which, IIRC, lost something like 20 million in the last war) commemorates anything with a poem written by a Frenchman about a flower growing in Belgium.

Flame me all you want on this one, but I find the demands for acknowledging veterans day are both quite US centric and utterly unsensitive to the rest of the world.

What if I would DEMAND that Google also include the Dutch "Queen's day" for the rest of the world to see? That wouldn't make sense at all. But at least it's not as insensitive as rubbing salt into the wounds of Iraqi or Afghan or Vietnamese or Japanese people who visit Google (and the list will keep growing for a while). I'm sure those people w

Flame me all you want on this one, but I find the demands for acknowledging veterans day are both quite US centric and utterly unsensitive to the rest of the world.

What if I would DEMAND that Google also include the Dutch "Queen's day" for the rest of the world to see? That wouldn't make sense at all. But at least it's not as insensitive as rubbing salt into the wounds of Iraqi or Afghan or Vietnamese or Japanese people who visit Google (and the list will keep growing for a while). I'm sure those people will be thrilled to know that the killers of their lost family are being honored on this special day.

If you actually check, google is only putting this out on the US version of the site, ie www.google.com a quick look at www.google.co.uk will clearly show the helmets are not there.

Try doing some research before making stupid demands to the search engine gods.

I am ashamed you are a countryman of mine. Iraq back then was part of the Ottoman empire, so didn't even exist back then. Japan was on the "allied" site. Vietnam was a french colony, so on the same side as the US (when the americans finally got involved).

The 11th of november is remembered in the western nations that took part in WW1, this includes the US, canada, great britian, france and belgium at least. It is NOT a US day. It is also not a celebrations, it is a remembrance of those who died. Not a glorification of killing but a rememberance of the loss.

It is similar to our 4th of may, we remember those who died, ALL who died, in conflict. This includes those on the other side. No we do not lay reefs at site of nazi war criminals, but the graves of german soldiers are tended too and they too are remembered.

Frankly most soldiers from these past wars have learned to forgive but never forget, they can talk with their former enemies, why can't you get over it.

As for google displaying a bit of pride in the US, it is a US site. Let the afghans and iraqies and anyone else with a beef against the US go on their own internet and use their own search engines.

As a dutch person surely you must have noticed how everything turns orange around queens day? How should people from Suriname feel about that? Enslaved by dutch forces, to pay for the dutch empire, about this day?

Start looking a little closer at home before you start blaming other countries.

I am a recent United States Navy Disabled Veteran, I was very happy to see this little design.

Most people think veterans day is just "another day", but to the people serving in the military, and fighting for your rights, it means a lot. Each and every time I see anything that honors veterans, it really makes my day.

Shit, I cry during the National Anthem and the Pledge because, as a former military member, those words really do mean a lot more to me.

When the next draft comes around, how many of you will run to canada and claim you're a Consienance Objector (sp?). How many of you will encourage your children, if they're of age, to go fight for this country?

Well, I'm not an American but I believe this is somewhat universal:

The effing day someone actually gives a fuck about my in my government is the day I might start considering serving for the country. As it stands now, everything I have comes from personal struggle or through our combined efforts to exploit others. There is nothing to be proud of of your country. Patriotism is a plague.

I STRONGLY believe in something the Germans currently do, where (and I may be wrong about the specifics) once you're like 18 you must do a couple years in either the military OR the civil service. Manditory. That would definitely build some national pride and respect.

Conscription==Slavery. I cannot see why people have a problem understanding this.

Time and again arguments like "national pride", "respect"(WTF?), "useful skills" and of course "manhood"(LOL), are brought forward to justify forcing people to lab

Time and again arguments like "national pride", "respect"(WTF?), "useful skills" and of course "manhood"(LOL)

The other thing of course about the manhood argument in Bush's context is its' degree of inconsistency.

I heard about a soldier giving a speech at a high school in the US where he told some student to, "be a man." The immediate response that came to mind was, "what, you mean the way Bush and Cheney were when they dodged?"

Nobody should IMHO be using WW2 as justification for feeling warm and fuzzy over anyone who is idiotic enough to go to Iraq. WW2 was a very different conflict, in a very different time. Sure, back then people were fighting for the continuation of the free world...but back then, such was actually *worth* potentially getting yourself killed for. Also, back then the human race itself was something worth preserving...these days, that's nowhere near as certain as it once was.

Soldiers or vets are perfectly free in my own mind to deride me as a snot-nosed civilian who will die without ever having put my own head on the block; fine, guilty as charged. My point though is that there's *another* snot-nosed civilian currently sitting in the White House, who also has never put himself in the firing line, who even with that, orders you to go and get yourselves killed in a war that has zero relevance or benefit for you personally, and which exists in its' entirety to make said civilian and others like him a whole lot more wealthy...and you listen to him, go and do it, and then expect people to applaud this incredible gullibility if you happen to survive the experience.

Something else I read once, and which I try and apply if there's ever a scenario where it's relevant, (even if the only real place where it happens is World of Warcraft) is that the only type of commander who's worth anything at all is one who never, ever orders anyone under him to do anything that he isn't willing to do himself.

Next time you go to think of Bush as your Commander in Chief, stop and ask yourselves...Do you really think, given the opportunity, he'd willingly be there dodging bullets with you in Fallujah or Kirkuk?

You say that the military doesn't provide recruits with a list of assignments and wars they'll be engaging in so you can decide if you agree with the principles used to justify them. This is exactly what makes volunteering for the military such a dubious proposition, and seriously clouds the idea that such a sacrifice should automatically be considered a positive thing, or even respected.If recruiting requires one to sacrifice your moral decision making to a 3rd party, the amount of respect you deserve rea

Care to tell me why Google should feel "bad" about not celebrating (if you can call it celebrating) a holiday nobody outside the US cares about? Or rather, why should they be "forced" to consider some national holiday important?

Halloween, ok. It's more or less international by now. Christmas? Ok, as long as it's done in a way that isn't Christo-centric and includes other religions' celebrations (you know it's actually Midwinter, right? It's not like the Pope invented that one). I can see Chinese new year, as it's celebrated by Chinese people all over the world and not just by people in the PRC. Even the Sputnik launch makes sense, less in a commemoration of the achivements of the Soviet Union as rather a stunning achivement in technology (personally, I don't give a rat's behind who does something great as long as someone does it).

But memorial day (or whatever it is)? Hello? Ask anyone in Europe when that day is and you get a "What's Memorial day? Did they move our national holiday again?"

So what's next? Will we get pressure from other special interest groups to celebrate "their" holiday on Google? A special Ramadan frontpage? And one for Martin Luther King day? Hey, I'm quite pissed there was none for our great national holiday! Rant! Whine! Tantrum! I want one!

Could we concentrate on holidays that at least a sizable portion of the planet cares about?

The "peace" dictated in Versailles after WW1 was not meant to be a peace with conciliation in mind. It was aimed at destroying Germany and the German ability to wage a war. If anything, it backfired severely as we learned 2 decades later. In the maybe most horrible way possible.

I find it hard to celebrate a peace that created another war, even more devastating, more destructive and more horrible than the one this peace ended.

WW1 was about some kings and generals thinking they could quickly gain some ground. We had waaaaay different rules of war back then. War wasn't meant to destroy your opponent. Just to take some land away from him.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned our backsAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men marched asleep. Many had lost their bootsBut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hootsOf disappointed shells that dropped behind.GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;But someone still was yelling out and stumblingAnd

The article doesn't say which veterans' organizations have been putting pressure on Google, but I bet it was the American Legion, and if it was, and I were Google, I would refuse to put up a special logo for the sole purpose of spiting them. The American Legion is a nasty, greedy, warmongering organization. None of the vets in my family or circle of friends will have anything to do with them. Remembrance Day here in Canada (I'm a dual citizen and have lived in both countries) has a very different feeling f

This holiday is actually the anniversary of the end of WWI. It is celebrated in several countries as armistice day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day [wikipedia.org]. The Google logo was quite appropriate for this. If the USA want to celebrate their veterans that day, fine, but that's no reason to forget the origin of the holiday. To us in Belgium it's a holiday about peace, not about war (or those who wage it).

I'm beginning to suspect that there is some game
to be the person that gets the stupidest story accepted by
slashdot, and Google is the trump card. Yesterday we had
a story saying that some IVR systems use a sound that indicates
that they're still on the line and processing, and so does
GOOG-411! And
then a story that mentioned that sometimes people who announce
that they're quitting sometimes get booted from the building
and sometimes those people are quitting so they can go
work for Google! And today

Besides this new-found respect for the military veterans, Google is starting to muscle their way into the gas business too! [linuxtoday.com]

Not quite prospecting for or exploiting underground resources quite yet, but many a career has started at the pump...

But seriously, for a company with a truly global customer base (not forgetting that infamous motto either) celebrating militaries must have been a difficult decision to make, although geotargetting obviously alleviates some of the obvious issues here. I mean, most of

I could not care less about Vetereans day - and I'm an American USMC veteran (six years active duty, combat, got all the fruit salad to wear, thanks...). A Federal Day off (in the US) is worth nothing to me. I would be happy if the civilian leadership (that's you, voters) would bother to learn from history and maybe learn about the world outside the US borders, so there might be fewer Vets in need of remembrance or memorial and more walking around pulling air and enjoying the good life we seem to take for granted and by right.

Why should Google placing a helmet or other cartoon on their home page mean anything, and why should I care?

1) There's separate Google sites for non-American users, so recognizing Memorial Day doesn't have to offend anyone outside of the US.2) 11/11 isn't just an American Holiday. There were several nations involved in WWI. Most (on the winning side) recognize Armistice Day (last I checked), in some form or another. Hence the WWI style flak helmets on the logo, which are rather appropriate. In the US and most Commonwealth countries they have since extended the Holiday to honoring all Veterans, though...

You can be proud of your country's achivements. A country as a whole can pull off remarkable feats. I can well see a person from the USA being proud that their country pulled together to put a man on the moon. That's a national feat. And being proud of your country's achivements (as long as it doesn't so happen to be some inventor who just happens to live there) is quite acceptable in my books.What's utterly BS is being proud to be from a certain country. What's there to be proud of? That you were born ther

I am very offended in seeing the tag "whining" attached to this article. Soldiers of all nationalities give their lives, often dying gruesome deaths, so that war profiteers and other unscrupulous chickenhawk fatcats win big.

Yes, soldiers die in horrible ways. And some sites use the issue to raise their own profile by complaining about Google. Some sites have a legitimate issue in raising concerns, and some such as WorldNetDaily are whiners. They are religion freaks who have an agenda to piss and moan abo

Fuck all of you smash capitalism and imperialist war with international socialist revolution.

Ummm...I'm fairly sure one of the things Veteran's Day would mark is the winning of the Cold War.;-)

Seriously guys...this sort of extreme Marxist ranting and foaming at the mouth is really getting old. Are any of you truly naive and idiotic enough to believe that we'd be any better off in a Marxist scenario?